Contact Information Digital
Inequality 9/11 Political Discourse Global New Media Curriculum Vitae
Developing a
Taste for the Necessary:
A Bourdieuian Approach to Digital
Inequality & “Information Habitus”
My
current work explores digital inequality among economically disadvantaged
youth. The study examines the role played by information resources in everyday
processes by situating information seeking and media use within respondents'
larger social networks and access to resources.
While
American teenagers are often presumed to be uniformly “wired,” in reality
segments of the youth population lack high quality, high autonomy internet
access. Taking a uniquely holistic approach that situates new media use within
respondents' larger lifeworlds, this study examines the effects of digital inequality
on economically disadvantaged American youth in a
Analyzing
two primary surveys (n=850 & n=1,400), as well as focus group and interview
data (67 respondents), my findings reveal the roles played by spatial-temporal
constraints in fostering disparities in both usage and skills. Respondents vary
widely in terms of their material access to a range of information resources,
as well as in the skills they possess. They are ethnically and economically
diverse, with the most economically disadvantaged coming from families with
incomes falling below federal poverty measures. While 3% had never used the
internet, 22% of respondents began using the internet within the last year, 35%
within the last two to four years, and 43% over five years ago.
A close
examination of the interview material discloses a dramatic divergence in the
informational orientation or habitus internalized by respondents with more and
less constrained internet access. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of skholè, my
work outlines the differences between the playful or exploratory stance of
those with high quality, high autonomy internet access and the task-oriented
stance assumed by those with low quality, low autonomy internet access.
Analysis reveals that those with low autonomy, low quality access enact what
Bourdieu terms a taste for the necessary in their rationing of internet
use, striving to avoid what they perceive as wasteful activities with no
immediate payoff. In my article in Information, Communication, and Society (2009),
I develop a theory of “information habitus,” a potentially invaluable concept
in future research on digital inequality.
The study
analyzes the constraints, opportunity costs, and social pressures that shape respondents'
information seeking behaviors. In so doing, the research illuminates the social
processes through which economically disadvantaged youth acquire particular
skills and habits associated with the use of information technologies. Analysis
indicates that the ways that diverse populations use the internet, as well as
their social circumstances, prevent inequality from being mitigated. One
significant finding is the role played by temporal resources in developing a
task-oriented information habitus. The majority of the most economically
challenged respondents regard the internet as a dispensable luxury due to its
immediate economic and temporal costs. For them, basic access to the internet
does not have the same impact as it does for their economically privileged
counterparts. Rather, in tandem with other resources, different use of the
internet as an information resource replicates offline inequalities and
accentuates the impacts of disadvantage.
Peer-Reviewed Articles and Related Publications
“Digital Inequalities Among American Youth: Access, Attitudes, and
Information Seeking.” Forthcoming June 2009 in the Second Annual Special Issue of the Communication and
Information Technologies Section of the American Sociological Association
Re-public
Re-Imagining Democracy.
UC
“Orientations
Towards New Media: Economic Disadvantage and Conditions of Access.”
American
Sociological Association Annual Meeting,
“Information
Seeking and Evaluation Among Economically Disadvantaged Youth: Examining the
Effects of Digital Inequality” (with Jeremy Schulz).
Southern
Sociological Society Annual Conference,
“Training
the Sociological Eye on Digital Inequality.”
American
Sociological Association Annual Meeting,
“Information the
International Communication
Association Conference,
Grants
2009-2010 Presidential Research
Grant
2009
Provost's Research Grant
2006-2008
Postdoctoral Fellow 2006-2008